Triona M McCaffrey

Considering the history and development of music therapy in mental health is important in providing practitioners of the field with an understanding of the context in which the profession has emerged. The shaping of the discipline towards professionalization has involved multiple intersecting agents, ideas and processes over many years. This paper reviews some of the milestones and significant junctures that framed the practice of music therapy in mental health care whilst noting how some of these ingredients have been amplified or diminished over time. The author observes the numerous references to the ‘soul’ and ‘spirit’ along this trajectory and asks if such narratives are being lost in descriptions of contemporary music therapy practice in mental health.

This study presents a preliminary exploration of music therapists’ first-hand experiences of engaging in verbal dialogue with clients in their clinical practice. To the authors’ knowledge no previous studies have examined the role of verbal dialogue from the first-hand perspectives of experienced professionals working in the field.  Three individual interviews were conducted with three accredited Irish music therapists. Four central themes emerged as a result of thematic content analysis: content and function of verbal dialogue, the use of verbal dialogue may contribute to professional ambiguity, returning to the music, and the dyadic relationship between musical and verbal exchange. The findings revealed verbal dialogue to be a topic of interest for the participants in this study, one which stimulated meaningful reflections about clinical practice. The implications for professional identity and clinical practice which arose distinguished verbal dialogue as a potential area for furt...

As recovery is a prevailing vision for modern mental health services internationally, it is timely to consider its current state of play in relation to music therapy practice. This paper offers a theoretical perspective of this topic, by presenting the views of four music therapy researchers situated in Australia, Ireland, Norway, and the United Kingdom. Each of the four authors completed doctoral research in music therapy in the past three years that is explicitly about, or related to, recovery in mental health. Collectively all authors have considerable experience of providing individual and group music therapy services in acute and community settings with adults and adolescents within recovery-oriented services. This article aims to elaborate on the implications of music therapy as a recovery-oriented practice, while presenting recommendations as to how music therapy can maximize support for recovery for our patients and service users. It draws on our respective doctoral study fi...

This paper presents a rationale for arts-based practices in music therapy research, and provides an example of using ABR techniques in research. Arts-based materials are increasingly demonstrated to have the capacity to extend processes of reflexivity and analysis in a range of qualitative health research studies. By comparison, music therapy research studies have rarely employed arts-based methods or techniques. There is a need for more studies in music therapy that employ arts-based research to demystify and elaborate a wider range of creative approaches within music therapy inquiry. In the study described in this paper, ABR was used to reflect on the contribution of a service user in a community mental health context who participated in a focus group about his experiences of music therapy. ABR was found to offer a creative way to engage service users, and to deepen and extend the researcher’s reflexivity when responding to materials created by research participants.

This paper reflects the experiences of a group of researchers from the Music & Health Research Group , Sue, Triona, and Jason who are undertaking PhD research studies supervised by Jane that are oriented around service user1 experiences. An overview of the inclusion of service user perspectives is presented with reference to the deeper reflection on a client centred approach to research developing in health and social care research that is evident in recent music therapy research. Descriptions of service user inclusion within the three projects is provided. As can be seen from each project description, each researcher uses a theoretical base to frame and shape the research study.

The promotion of mental well-being is an overarching aim of music therapy as a psychosocial practice. Music therapy is offered from a key principle that central to a person’s well-being is their need for meaningful relating. Music therapy can offer an alternative pathway of expression and connection with others that can help develop one’s capacity to engage with and maintain relationships outside of the therapeutic work. Music therapy can be offered as a stand-alone therapeutic process or as an adjunct to other standard mental health treatment. In the early years of music therapy’s development as a profession in Europe, Australia, and the US, it was introduced in large institutions through programmes that focused on the treatment of mental illness. Music therapy has now become a diverse practice that encompasses preventative care through community based models, wellness programmes, as well as continuing to provide services within mental health care contexts.

Music therapy educators around the globe are united in their commitment to the development of the profession through the education of new professionals. Although different university programmes emphasise diverse approaches and are representative of their surrounding cultures, there is much that is shared between different programmes and educators. However, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, there was minimal interaction between educators as a group, possibly due to time pressures and a lack of need to unite and celebrate our diversities. With the onset of the pandemic and the rapid transition to online learning, an unexpected space emerged for collective dialogue among the music therapy educator community. Brought together by the challenges imposed on professional training due to a global pandemic, a number of global educators united in discussion to seek a way forward.

Background: Mental health service development internationally is increasingly informed by the collaborative ethos of recovery. Service user evaluation of experiences within music therapy programs allows new phenomena about participation in services to be revealed that might otherwise remain unnoticed.

Objective: The aim of this study was to demonstrate how asking service users about their experience of music therapy can generate useful information, and to reflect upon the feedback elicited from such processes in order to gain a deeper understanding of how music therapy is received among service users in mental health.

Methods: Six mental health service users described their experiences of music therapy in one or two individual interviews. Transcripts of interviews were analyzed using the procedures and techniques of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis.

Results: Interviews with mental health service users provided rich, in-depth accounts reflecting the complex nature of music therapy participation. Super-ordinate themes refer to the context in which music therapy was offered, the rich sound world of music in music therapy, the humanity of music therapy, and the strengths enhancing opportunities experienced by service users.

Conclusions: Participants indicated that they each experienced music therapy in unique ways. Opinions about the value of music therapy were revealed through an interview process in which the researcher holds an open attitude, welcoming all narrative contributions respectfully. These findings can remind practitioners of the importance of closely tuning into the perspectives and understandings of those who have valuable expertise to share about their experience of music therapy services in mental health.

This paper presents a rationale for arts-based practices in music therapy research, and provides an example of using ABR techniques in research. Arts-based materials are increasingly demonstrated to have the capacity to extend processes of reflexivity and analysis in a range of qualitative health research studies. By comparison, music therapy research studies have rarely employed arts-based methods or techniques. There is a need for more studies in music therapy that employ arts-based research to demystify and elaborate a wider range of creative approaches within music therapy inquiry. In the study described in this paper, ABR was used to reflect on the contribution of a service user in a community mental health context who participated in a focus group about his experiences of music therapy. ABR was found to offer a creative way to engage service users, and to deepen and extend the researcher’s reflexivity when responding to materials created by research participants.

Considering the history and development of music therapy in mental health is important in providing practitioners of the field with an understanding of the context in which the profession has emerged. The shaping of the discipline towards professionalization of music therapy has involved multiple and intersecting agents, ideas and processes over many years. Written from the perspective of a music therapist who is based in Ireland, this paper reviews some of the milestones and significant junctures that framed the practice of music therapy in mental health care. It also notes how some of these ingredients have been amplified or diminished over time. The author observes the numerous references to the ‘soul’ and ‘spirit’ along this trajectory and speculated whether such narratives are being lost in descriptions of contemporary music therapy practice in mental health.

The promotion of mental well-being is an overarching aim of music therapy as a psychosocial practice. Music therapy is offered from a key principle that central to a person’s well-being is their need for meaningful relating. Music therapy can offer an alternative pathway of expression and connection with others that can help develop one’s capacity to engage with and maintain relationships outside of the therapeutic work. Music therapy can be offered as a stand-alone therapeutic process or as an adjunct to other standard mental health treatment. In the early years of music therapy’s development as a profession in Europe, Australia, and the US, it was introduced in large institutions through programmes that focused on the treatment of mental illness. Music therapy has now become a diverse practice that encompasses preventative care through community based models, wellness programmes, as well as continuing to provide services within mental health care contexts.

On my desk are a pile of scripts – the 2nd year students of the MA Music Therapy programme have just completed their mental health exam. This is a form of assessment that requires students to demonstrate a range of theoretical and practical knowledge relating to the application of music therapy in mental health care. As I read through these scripts I notice how the students have referred to the music therapy ‘evidence-base’ in order to support notions of efficacy and effectiveness of this practice. They have also described, in very practical terms, how music can be used to assist and support people at times of distress or difficulty. The combination of medical and ecological language featured in the students’ answers is striking. This causes me to reflect upon my previous role as a music therapist in mental health and consider the possibilities that this practice can offer to service users as they overcome illness and journey towards wellness.